I worked a bit with SCETC from October 2005 to March 2006 when the CO at that time retired as did several of the officers who were involved in standing up SCETC. I recommended on several occassions that we go to Ft. Bragg, dig into their libabry and pull out some of the materails that we used when I went through MATA in the fall of 1966. "Oh, yeah, good idea." But nothing happened. I also said that I had both materials and experience and would work with them for free to get this thing off the ground. I also recommended creating online (distance learning in Marine Corps parlance) learning materials because that happened to be one of my areas of expertise. Nothing.

At that time, much to their credit, they pulled togther handouts and PowerPoints from the Basic School, the Comm School and various other organizations into a 4-ich binder that was a collection of information. They had no formal instructors but relied on visiting guest speakers to put on their classes using a variety of materials and resources.

I worked with a couple of the officers to create a four-week intensive curriculum (I have submitted that as an article for publication to the Marine Corps Gazette) and volunteered to write an instructor guide, learner guide, and a pocket-size "Handbook for Marine Advisors" for the classes and students. (I am an experienced (30 years) instructional systems developer (ISD) and a multimedia training development expert that started and ran my own mutimedia development company for 9 years. Lots of "Oh yeah, good idea. When we get funding we will do that." They hired some instructors in July and were working with the US Army at Ft. Leavenworth to set up a joint advisor training program. This is different than the Foreign Military Training Unit which is part of MARSOC.

I do not know the current state of the curriculum or the development of learning materials as all of my attempts to contact the new CO and the Deputy Director at SCETC have not been answered. This prompted my comment on a previous posting that "it ain't that hard-except in the military." A number of Marine and Army units have taken the initiate and moved forward with their own training and some have created CAP units that have worked successfully (see Lt. Ishol's article in the February 2006 Marine Corps Gazette). I corresponed with him and Lt. Colonel Buhl while they were in Iraq and shared some of our experiencxes ins etting up and running the first CAP in Pu Bai in 1965. I am still more that willing to help create effective learning materials if there is a need..